The Launch That Rewrites the Record Books

 

The Launch That Rewrites the Record BooksSPCX $135

SpaceX goes public today. The biggest IPO in history was always going to be messy. The question is whether the story is really about rockets.

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This morning, for the first time in 24 years, ordinary investors can buy a piece of Elon Musk's space company. SpaceX priced at $135 per share on Thursday evening and begins trading on the Nasdaq under SPCX today — raising $75 billion, a record that more than doubles Saudi Aramco's 2019 haul of $35 billion and values the company at $1.77 trillion.

The deal was oversubscribed by more than 3× — attracting over $250 billion in institutional demand against a $75 billion raise. Retail investors received a 30% allocation, three times the standard for a mega-cap IPO.

But read the S-1 carefully and the company that shows up isn't quite the one Wall Street has been romanticising. SpaceX operates as three distinct businesses with wildly different economics. Starlink, the satellite internet division, is the engine: $11.4 billion in 2025 revenue, 63% EBITDA margins, and a subscriber base that grew from 4.5 million to over 10.3 million in a single year. It is one of the most profitable connectivity businesses on earth.

$1.77T

IPO valuation

$75B

raised — largest ever

4%

public float on day one

Then there's the drag. The xAI division — acquired in February 2026 — posted a $6.36 billion operating loss in 2025. The Space launch segment, SpaceX's founding mission, still doesn't turn a GAAP profit. The result: a company that earned $6.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA for 2025 but reported a net loss of $4.94 billion. Q1 2026 alone added another $4.28 billion to an accumulated deficit now sitting at $41.3 billion.

The valuation — roughly 110× trailing revenue — is a bet on what Starlink becomes, not what SpaceX currently earns. Bulls see a vertically integrated infrastructure monopoly spanning internet, launch, AI compute, and eventually Mars. Bears see Musk's personal holding company trading at software multiples with capital-intensive launch economics.

One structural tailwind that has nothing to do with fundamentals: MSCI announced that SPCX is eligible for early index inclusion starting tomorrow, June 13. With only a 4% float in circulation, the passive-fund demand that creates will be significant — and largely price-insensitive.

Musk retains approximately 82.4% of voting power post-IPO. Whatever the stock does today, that number is the one that actually governs the company.

SpaceX trades on Nasdaq under SPCX at $135/share. The offering closes June 15. This is not investment advice.